Least-Worst
by Earendil Eldar
Summary: Ianto's scheme to get Jack to loosen his grip on the secret base at Flat Holm backfires spectacularly, thanks to reliable old Torchwood Luck.


It was a fact of Torchwood life that the overwhelming majority of time-space and/or alien situations simply had no _good_ solution. There was usually only a "least-worst" option that resulted in a few deaths and as little trauma as possible for the general population – both human and alien. And that was quite a bit better than it had been in days gone by, before Torchwood 1 ended up hoist by its own petard, before Jack started making changes to Torchwood 3.

That was something Gwen Cooper still didn't "get". To her, an answer that wasn't _good_ for all involved was not acceptable. It was perfectly understandable why Jack had no plans to tell Gwen anything about what went on down at Flat Holm. There was literally nothing in the world that could help those who had been harmed so thoroughly by the Rift, not even the best of conventional psychiatric hospitals was equipped to deal with that level of suffering.

And yet, Ianto also knew that if he didn't do something, there was going to be an almighty clash between Jack and Gwen when (not if) she found out on her own. Gwen might be incredibly naïve but she wasn't stupid and she was persistent. She and Jack were matched for hardheadedness and Jack could at times be even more hidebound than Gwen. Ianto had no choice but to intercede, and so far the direct approach – trying to talk Jack round – hadn't met with any progress. It looked like Muhammed was going to have to go to the mountain. As usual.

Ianto wasn't about to sit Gwen down with the Flat Holm procedural manual, he wasn't that masochistic, so he knew his approach had to be something with a "fuse" long enough to allow him time to retreat before the "blast". Plausible deniability was a useful thing, indeed. But there was also the fact that Jack had trusted him with this secret and he wasn't willing to take advantage of Jack's trust – yet again – at least not entirely.

'Least-worst', Ianto thought, sitting back at his desk in the archives. He retrieved one of his always-charged GPS devices and set it to locate Flat Holm, then fetched a used envelope and made up a label to look as though it had been through the post like the rest of the packaging. That would take care of one side of the equation. Now he just needed to determine the least-worst way of managing the other side.

There was always one sure way to divert Jack's attention, but Ianto thought he might do well to step it up a bit for the occasion. Give Jack a bit of an extra treat, something he'd been angling at for a while. Ianto sighed. That was obvious, then. Ianto had been putting Jack off every time he hinted about a round of their own unique version of hide-and-seek for weeks. When he wasn't utterly all-in after a long day, there was usually way too much of a chance of someone returning to the Hub and Ianto ending up stuck hiding – stark-bollock naked but for a necktie – in a disused server cabinet for more than an hour. Again.

As Torchwood Luck would have it, it happened to be Gwen's day off _and_ Tosh and Owen had been out doing safe-house rounds that day, so it was unlikely they'd come back to the Hub before morning. Naked hide-and-seek it was, then. Followed by a long, hot shag. And a cup of Ianto's special brew, in bed, for good measure. Then, once Jack was practically beyond coherent thought, Ianto would casually explain his plan. If Jack seriously objected, he would still have time to fetch the parcel out of Gwen's inbox and try again. Least-worst.

Ianto collected up the package and went up to the tourist office to fetch and sort the real post for the day. He'd do the rounds and save Jack's for last, then see if he couldn't prise Jack away from his paperwork (as if!) for a bit of seriously over-developed foreplay.

…

Naturally, Ianto should have remembered that Torchwood Luck and Murphy's Law came from the same sadistic corner of the universe. Jack, having cheated as usual, caught Ianto hiding in the greenhouse and demanded his vest as his first capture in their hands-on strip game. Naturally, Jack couldn't just efficiently remove Ianto's shirt and undergarment and get on to the next round, he had to make sure stop #1 left them both dangling on the edge, gagging for it. Merciless tease as he was. Unfortunately, before round 2 had a chance to kick off, Gwen Cooper had walked in on them with hands down one another's trousers.

Ianto was absolutely certain that if the universe wanted him dead, there were any number of less painful ways of going about it. Instead of liquefying with the mortification he was almost getting accustomed to, though, Ianto told himself to suck it up and that he only had himself to blame. He needed to let Gwen know about that parcel anyway… and that would _absolutely_ ensure that she wouldn't be in the Hub for the rest of the evening, so maybe it was just as well.

Ianto had been sure that Gwen was going to start the show-down right then and there, but apparently Ianto was the only one getting a rise out of Jack that evening, despite his own flagging rather abruptly. Nothing Jack couldn't fix in moments, of course, as he determinedly strode back into the greenhouse and started stripping off again. Ianto had the feeling hide-and-seek was done for the night but he wasn't going to be moving on to the final phase until he was certain that Gwen was well out of the Hub. And he might insist on lockdown even then. Or at least locking the hatch to Jack's bunker.

Walking back into the greenhouse, Ianto picked up Jack's dropped shirt and handed it to him. "Technically, you ought to be keeping that on. Against the rules to take off clothes when you haven't been caught, as I recall," Ianto reminded Jack.

"Who cares about rules?" Jack grinned back.

Ianto rolled his eyes. The irony was a bit too much, even if Jack didn't quite know it yet. "I propose we slow it down. I don't fancy her walking in here again and I won't be in the mood at all if there's another ideological clash tonight."

Jack pouted mightily. "That's so not fair."

"Besides, you've already won and thrown out the rules about who takes what off when," Ianto continued. "Let's just wait till she's cleared out, have a coffee, and get back to where we left off – in peace. And, no, we could have definitely _not_ used her during naked hide-and-seek. I may have to retcon that image out of my mind."

"Still not fair," Jack grumbled.

"I'll do my special brew," Ianto promised.

"Will you do your special -"

"Yes, that as well," Ianto said quickly, though he couldn't help grinning, loving that he could get Jack to be so responsive just by…. Yes, well.

By the time they'd savoured a cup of Ianto's secret coffee blend and a couple of HobNobs to make up for the interruption, Jack was more than ready to resume their activities. They resumed well into the night, in fact, with Ianto reprising his _special_ more than once, to Jack's enthusiastic delight.

As they were lying tangled together, Ianto absently trailing fingertips up and down Jack's back, he decided that Jack was as mentally vulnerable as possible and it was the perfect moment to bring up his plan for letting Gwen learn for herself why some things couldn't be fixed and to believe Jack when he advised letting something be. Ianto took a deep breath to steel himself and… Jack snored loudly, mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep, and burrowed in closer against Ianto.

Ianto sighed. It would have to be first thing in the morning, then. Bloody Murphy, he thought.

…

When Ianto woke up, he was alone in Jack's bed. He could hear Jack humming something, somewhere, and occasionally some words that sounded like something by Cole Porter. Ianto peered up toward the ladder going into Jack's office.

"But, baby, if I'm the bottom, you're the top!" Jack sang out exuberantly, just before appearing above the manhole. "You up, Ianto? I gotta run out. Be back before long, promise. Oh, and thanks again for last night," Jack said with a lascivious grin, practically licking his lips still.

With that, he was off, leaving Ianto on his own to get showered and dressed for another working day. It was only after he'd pushed himself off of Jack's glorified cot that he remembered that he needed to talk to Jack about the Flat Holm GPS thing. It had been such a good plan when he'd come up with it, Ianto thought gloomily. He should have known that relying on getting Jack logy with lust was a bit of a gamble, since he couldn't be sure he'd be entirely immune to the same side-effects, but it had worked well so often in the past….

…

The ensuing week had been… tense. At least Gwen was markedly subdued, because Ianto didn't think he could stand her typical perkiness or overbearing compassion just then. He and Jack hadn't exchanged more than two extra-professional words since Jack had come back from Flat Holm that afternoon. After three days' excommunication, Ianto would have gladly welcomed a blazing row, resolved, as Jack usually said, by some naked wrestling. There were no rows, though, and definitely nothing naked, making Ianto awfully glad the sex had been so good the last time. It might very well end up being the _last time_.

It wasn't that Ianto was entirely passive, waiting for Jack to make the first move. At least half a dozen times, Ianto had approached Jack when he was alone, perfectly willing to plead his contrition. Every time he tried, though, Jack silenced him with a flinty stare and turned and walked away. It hadn't even been that icy between them after the destruction of the Cyberman that had stolen Lisa's identity. At least then Jack had managed to find a shred of sympathy for Ianto's motives.

Ianto spent most of the week holed up in the archives, mainly avoiding Jack, but he got very little work done. He knew he needed to get passed it, at least while at work, because Torchwood was no place for distraction and self-pity. Ianto was ready to assign himself a "mental health day" when he handed Tosh a cup of tea one afternoon, only for her to point out that she didn't normally steep her tea in coffee. There was just no excuse for that sort of incompetence, according to Ianto Jones.

That was the day Gwen finally had a clean-out of the wallpapering she'd done in the interrogation room, pulling down all those missing persons notices and chucking the lot. Ianto couldn't help noticing that Jack supervised the proceedings, unbeknownst to Gwen, and that he looked rather bitter the whole time.

Finally, Ianto pulled himself away from the CCTV screen and went back to the box of Roman coins gathered up from a literal Rift storm a few days earlier. Apparently, Rift was in a returning-things mode. It was a reasonable guess that the coins had been sucked up from their general area hundreds of years ago. Ianto spared a thought for the poor _quaestor_ who was probably accused of pilfering the till.

Almost an hour later, there was a quiet "hi" from over by the door to the archive office. Ianto could have easily dismissed it as a rattling pipe in the corridor, or the switch-over of some electrical system or other, if it hadn't been accompanied by a rustle of fabric and jangle of keys in a pocket. Ianto wondered if he'd missed something on the schedule and or was being fetched for some mission, but as he turned, he was surprised to be met with a regretful-looking Jack in the doorway.

"Hello, sir. Something you needed?" Ianto responded, not at all sure they were back on personal terms yet.

Jack sighed deeply and chanced a step forward. "Yeah. I needed to apologize."

Ianto was a bit dumbfounded. "You? Last I checked, I was the one in the wrong."

"You weren't, though. Not entirely. I should have listened to you. Both to your telling me that it wouldn't help not telling Gwen, and to your attempts to talk about it all week. I'm sorry. You had the pulse of the situation, I was just being…," Jack sighed again, searching for the right word, "territorial. And sometimes I need a big, hard shove to make me see sense."

Ianto looked up at him and was struck by the weariness that had replaced that bitter look Jack wore earlier. "You're very protective of Flat Holm, and you have every right and reason to be. We're doing what's right out there, no matter what anyone thinks of it. It's the only thing we can do. Least-worst, Jack."

"Yeah. I know. I know that's true. Everybody, every one of us, ends up thoroughly disillusioned at some point, though, don't we? I hate that. I remember when I still wanted to save the galaxy and make everything right by everybody who deserved it. I regret the death of that in myself still."

Ianto shook his head. "You save the galaxy at least once a week. And reality is vastly more important, in this job especially, than illusions. Without that, we'd end up not saving anything, ever."

"You're right, as always," Jack nodded.

Ianto smiled a bit ruefully. "I may know everything, but that's not the same as always being right."

"That, too. Look, will you let me take you to dinner? Someplace nice."

"You don't hav-"

"Yeah, I do. To assuage my guilty conscience. Please?"

Ianto couldn't help smiling as he conceded. "Ok. As soon as I get cleaned up, alright? And then I owe you an apology as well. And we did have to cut short naked hide-and-seek last week."

Jack's brow rose and his face lit up. "I'll make sure we're alone. And the place is locked down!"


End file.
